Honji suijaku
Honji suijaku is a Japanese term used to explain the unique and interesting way in which the country's indigenous Shinto religion was combined with Buddhism after it was introduced from China and Korea.
Okay kiddo, so imagine you have two different kinds of candies. One is a jelly bean, and the other is a chocolate. Now, usually, you would eat them separately because they taste different, right? But what if you really like both candies?
Well, that's kind of what happened in Japan a long time ago. They had their own Shinto religion, with their own gods and rituals. Then people from another country, called China, brought another religion called Buddhism. But the Japanese people didn't want to give up their Shinto religion, because they really liked it.
So they decided to combine the two religions, like how you could eat both the jelly beans and the chocolate together to make a new yummy flavor. The Shinto gods became like the jelly bean, and the Buddha and other Buddhist deities became like the chocolate. They put them together in a way that made sense to them and made their own unique religion.
And that's how Honji Suijaku was born! It's a fancy way of saying "combining two different religions to make a new one." And it's an important part of Japanese culture and history.
Okay kiddo, so imagine you have two different kinds of candies. One is a jelly bean, and the other is a chocolate. Now, usually, you would eat them separately because they taste different, right? But what if you really like both candies?
Well, that's kind of what happened in Japan a long time ago. They had their own Shinto religion, with their own gods and rituals. Then people from another country, called China, brought another religion called Buddhism. But the Japanese people didn't want to give up their Shinto religion, because they really liked it.
So they decided to combine the two religions, like how you could eat both the jelly beans and the chocolate together to make a new yummy flavor. The Shinto gods became like the jelly bean, and the Buddha and other Buddhist deities became like the chocolate. They put them together in a way that made sense to them and made their own unique religion.
And that's how Honji Suijaku was born! It's a fancy way of saying "combining two different religions to make a new one." And it's an important part of Japanese culture and history.